Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Reviews: Piano Rat and The Chapbook

Victor David Giron - publisher, editor-in-chief, publicist, author and accountant for Curbside Splendor - sent me an advance PDF of this collection of poems by first time published poet Frankie Elliot. Piano Rats should be available sometime in October.

From page one, her honesty and ability to drop an F-Bomb won my heart. Here is a woman who is no stranger to love - She’s suffered its beauty, its jealousy, and its brutal end. Her poetry is like a mirror hanging on my wall, reflecting my own emotions and thoughts back at me.

She makes me want to scream "Fuck You" to every guy I dated who didn't "get me". She makes me want to get behind the pretty words people throw around, quit beating around the bush, and see things for what they really are. She creates a language of her own, breathing out lines like: "Love sometimes is just another word for jealousy", and "We can't save ourselves from anything that's supposed to happen".

The Chapbook, poems by Charles Bane Jr, is the complete opposite of Frankie's collection (reviewed above). Where Frankie's poems created clear images in my mind, Charles's poetry is much more abstract. Beauty, for him, appears to be in everything. At times it is overwhelming gorgeous. At others, it is so dense and complicated that I admit to not always understanding what he is trying to tell me.

An example of the beauty in his clarity: "I wander the beach sometimes where men stand with pants rolled fishing for a shark. And I think I can find you in the wandering night and set you close and kiss and, as we close our eyes, make another universe in our private dark."

An example of the abstract beauty: ""It must be carried in the hands, this such as never was. Allowed in shadow, a second of nevermore? Out from the shadows this precious, darling lamp".

His poems range from romantic to dedications to moments and memories.

His poems are paired with illustrations (perhaps colored pencil or pastels) by Canadian artist Isabelle Pruneau.

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I have been buried beneath small press and self-published review copies since 2009. My passion for supporting the small press and self publishing communities has driven me out into the world wide web to demonstrate alternative ways to spread the word about amazing publishers, authors, and novels you might never had heard of. Feeding your reading addiction, one book at a time.